Auburn Storefronts – Tory Franklin

Tory Franklin’s Sea of Troubles greets drivers and pedestrians headed down Main Street from the west, featuring a brilliant menagerie of creatures and sailing ships inspired by medieval maps and mythology.

Using adhesive vinyl, screen-printed Tyvek and PVC, Franklin has created an evocative, glowing world from our past, when the known world was far more mysterious, Google Earth didn’t exist, and the seas were filled with phantasmagorical creatures.

Franklin, a returning Storefronts artist who installed The Firebird in Seattle’s Chinatown neighborhood in 2012, describes her work as “window theaters loosely based on Victorian toy theaters, wherein all the puppets and facades are two-dimensional elements staggered to create depth. This installation debuts denizens of this theatre in all their ornamental glory, crawling from the printed map and preparing to tell their stories.”